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Football

08th Apr 2019

Robert Huth opens up on ‘difficult’ Marko Arnautovic

Jack O'Toole

Former Germany defender Robert Huth has said that Marko Arnautovic would have some games that would make you want to rip your hair out.

The West Ham striker got off to a flying start for the Hammers with four goals in his last seven games but he’s slowed up dramatically since the start of November.

Arnautovic was strongly linked with a move away from London in January and ultimately chose to stay with the Irons but Huth, who played with the Austrian forward at Stoke, said he could be impossible to motivate at times.

“I played with Marko and he can be difficult,” Huth said on BBC Radio 5Live.

“Make no mistake about that. One day he’d come in and be as happy as anything and then for one game you’d look at him and be like ‘any chance of doing anything? Could you run around?’

“At Stoke we had a good group and we could put a hand around him and we sort of got the best out of him. Bu some games you literally couldn’t motivate him.

“You could be shouting at him, you could be cuddling him and telling him how great he is and he’d just decide that today is not the day.

“I’m sure if you speak to some of the Stoke supporters they’d say he was absolutely brilliant for three years, and he absolutely was, but he has games where you could rip your hair out!.”

West Ham manager Manuel Pellegrini said before their loss to Chelsea on Monday that no one at the club is happy with Arnautovic’s lack of productivity but he admits that the player wants to perform better.

“I don’t think anybody can be happy,” he said.  “I think the fans are not happy. Me, I’m not happy and Marko’s not happy. But this happens to some players in the season that they are not in their best moment.

“Maybe he needs the support more than punishment. I am always talking with Marko and he wants to do things better.”

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